The end of October is a fitting time for the speculation of the college coaching carousel to meet reality.
All summer, we hear about jobs that are expected to open. Some years, they fall quickly. Think Nebraska in early September 2022. Some years, the expected never becomes reality, as Jim Harbaugh was the face of college football's hot seat in 2021 after Michigan reengineered his contract to make it easier to fire him. Then, of course, Michigan rattled off three straight Big Ten titles and one national championship.
Usually by the end of October, there's some clarity on which way schools will go. For administrators, they spend months quietly preparing for moves they hope they don't need to make. For the multimillion-dollar industry that has evolved around the coaching job market, the jockeying for clients and searches has been happening for months.
So how did summer projections meet fall realities? We explore the hot jobs here and how things could shake out in the Group of 5, which projects to be more active than the power leagues.
In Part 1 of midseason carousel watch, we looked at how some market forces could portend a quieter year. That lines up with the jobs that were the speculative focus this year.
Baylor
An exit for Dave Aranda still looms as a possibility, but there's a burgeoning optimism for his return in 2025 after a 59-35 blowout win over Texas Tech and a sound double-digit win over Oklahoma State last week. Baylor (4-4, 2-3) also has three losses in league play to schools that are 13-1 in the Big 12.